Let You Down
by JustJasper
Summary: Angst bingo 'chronic illness'. Morgan finds out Garcia needs more than her happy-go-lucky nature to cope.


"**That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful." - Elizabeth Wurtzel**

It had been a particularly gruesome case, and while Garcia had been back at headquarters, Morgan knew what she'd been seeing on her screens all day; images of horrifically mutilated women. So when their jet landed back at the airstrip, instead of heading straight to his car he headed inside and to her office.

He opened her door quietly, hoping to surprise her; she had music playing which masked his noise, and as he pushed the door closed again silent and began to cross the small room she scooped a small orange bottle from her desk, twisted open the cap and shook out two pills onto her hand. She sighed and tipped them back into her mouth, swallowing them down. She was putting the cap back on when he made himself known.

"Hey, my little druggie." He teased, assuming they were asprin. Garcia's reaction told otherwise; she jumped and yelped, wheeling around and dropping the pill bottle, which skittered across the floor toward Derek's feet.

"What's this?" he said, reaching for the dropped bottle. Garcia was faster, scooping it up into her hand and clutching it to her chest.

"No!" she scalded. "No, Derek, that is none of your business."

"Baby girl-" he started, but faltered at the sight of her serious face. "I'm sorry, Garcia." He ran a hand across his head, softening his expression. "You know you can talk to me, you know?"

"I know." She said shortly, but couldn't ignore the concern on his face. She exhaled from her nose and held out the small tube, offering it to Morgan, who took it.

"This.." he murmured as he turned it over in his hand, the pills inside rattling around. They weren't painkillers. "These are antidepressants. Are.." he swallowed. "You could have talked to me if you were having a hard time, Penelope." He said softly.

She gave a small breath of a laugh.

"I've been taking those since I'd been with the BAU for six months."

"What?" his brow knotted, turning the orange tube over and over in his hands.

"We had a case in Washington. All those little girls, the pictures of them dead. And not a single survivor." She explained, a sad smile on her face. "I went home after that, and I cried. I sobbed. I threw up, and I put my face in a pillow and screamed. Again and again, all night. And it wasn't even about the case, it was fear; I was terrified of going back to work the next day and doing the same thing over."

"Baby girl..."

"It's okay. I learned a long time ago I couldn't do this without help."

"If you'd have talked to me, I'd have listened." He said gently.

"I know. But you couldn't fix it. I knew I needed more than what you could give me to make it okay."

"Why didn't, you-" he paused, seeming to be trying to work out what words to use, "why didn't you transfer to a different part of the FBI?"

"Because the BAU is where I belong." She said, lifting a hand to push her glasses up her nose. "I didn't want to be anywhere else, I just wanted to be able to cope. So I went to my doctor, she diagnosed me with major depression, I went on medication and I started counselling victim's families."

"It helped?"

"Yeah."

He pulled up the spare swivel chair in Garcia's office and dropped down into it, exhaling slowly and rolling the pill bottle in his hand. She joined him, pulling the bobby pins out of her hair as she sat down, letting her ringlets tumble from bunches.

"If you left, would you be able to come off the meds?" he asked.

"I'm not sure." She shrugged her shoulders. "It's not just reacting, it's my brain too. Chemical imbalance – Reid's really the one to ask about that. Except don't. But I don't think too much about it. it doesn't really make a difference if it's just the job or it's my brain, because I'm not leaving the BAU any time soon."

She watched him as he leaned back, still turning the bottle over in his hand absently as he considered her.

"Does Kevin know?" he asked finally.

"Of course." She sighed.

"But you didn't.. tell me." he sounded hurt, despite wondering if he had the right to be.

"Because I knew you'd be like this." She extended her hand, squeezing his knee. "I know you'd think you let me down somehow."

"Haven't I?"

"No." She took the pills from him, slipping them back into her purse. "You've never let me down. This is just how I cope; you knock down walls, I need medication. The only way you could let me down is if you stop caring like this."

"I'm never going to stop caring about you." He said a little fiercely. "Ever."

"I know." She smiled at him, tugging him out of his seat by the wrist so she could wrap her arms around his chest.

"**You didn't get past something like that, you go through it - and for that reason alone, I understood more about her than she ever would have guessed." - Jodi Picoult**


End file.
